Thank you to Alan Gersch for contributing this week's Dvar Torah. If you would like to participate in this project through writng or receiving Divrei Torah, please contact Jason Herman at dt@koe.org. Shabbat shalom.
After the very dramatic events at the beginning of this week's parsha, the narrative takes a "break" and the Torah seems to digress to a large corpus of various laws, ranging from priests to lepers to kashrut to not perverting justice to loving the stranger, etc… Why this sudden long digression? I believe that this digression is really no digression at all, but flows logically from the narrative.
There is a curious paragraph of four verses that seems to be inserted in the middle of the narrative of Aaron & his sons' inauguration and the deaths of Nadav and Avihu. Leviticus 10:1-7 describe how they died and Moshe's commands to Aaron & family following their deaths. Then verses 8-11 command the law of "sh'tuyei yayin" - the prohibition for kohanim to perform the divine service after having drunk any intoxicating beverage. Then for the rest of the chapter, back to the narrative, discussing Aaron, Elazar and Itamar's further reaction to Nadav and Avihu's deaths. What is this command of "sh'tuyei yayin" doing in the middle of the story? Did G-d interrupt Moshe in the middle of his instructions to Aaron, Elazar and Itamar to give this law? Couldn't the Torah have placed it after the story's end only nine verses later?
In fact, these verses are not a digression, and neither is are the following four and a half parshiot. The four verses of "shtuyei yayin" are more than just a commandment. The latter two verses in the paragraph are a much broader statement: "And that you may differentiate between holy and unholy, and between unclean ("tamei") and clean ("tahor"); And that you may teach the Children of Israel all the statutes which G-d has spoken to them by the hand of Moshe." These verses serve as an introduction to the next several parshiot. In order to see this, let us examine the ensuing corpus of halachot that follow this narrative:
Chapter 11 - Kashrut
Chapter 12 - "Tazria" - The "aftermath" of childbirth vis-à-vis womens' bleeding and impurity
Chapter 13-14 - Tzara'at ("leprosy", for lack of a better term) on people, clothes and buildings
Chapter 15 - Unclean "issues"
Chapter 16 - "Acharei Mot" - the Yom Kippur Service
Chapter 17 - "Sh'chutei chutz" - prohibitions of sacrificing outside the Temple
Chaper 18 - Prohibited Caananite and Egyptian (mostly sexual) practices
Chapter 19-20 - "Kedoshim tihiyu" - Personal (mostly ethical) behavioral commandments
Now many of these laws clearly follow the theme of "differentiating between the holy and unholy, between 'tamei' and 'tahor'" and teaching such to the Israelites. I propose, in fact, that ALL of these laws follow that theme, both logically and through textual references:
Kashrut clearly differentiates between the animals we are allowed to eat and those we are not allowed to. Notice verse 11:47 says as much "To make a distinction between the 'tamei' and the 'tahor' and between the beast that may be eaten and the beast that may not be eaten." Notice the extreme similarity to our "introductory" verse (10:10)
Tazria - Explains the difference between "dam tohar" - "clean blood" - and "impure blood," such as a nidah's blood.
Tzara'at - Delineates which types of skin (or cloth or stone) afflictions qualify as "tamei" and which do not, and leaves it for the Kohanim to check and tell others. Notice the theme of the Koahanim teaching Bnei Yisrael as well as actually doing the differentiating. This (long) section ends with the verse (14:57) "To teach when it is 'tamei' and when it is 'tahor': this is the law of tzara'at." "Unclean issues" - Another "no-brainer": differentiating between the clean and unclean issues from a person's body. Notice the concluding verses include "Thus shall you separate Bnei Yisrael from their uncleanness…"
Acharei Mot - The Yom Kippur Avodah: One could certainly make a good case for this service being included because it differentiates the "holiest" of everything, time, place and person, in the course of the service (from the mundane, or even the "less holy."). However, I prefer to take a different approach more in keeping with the two-sided theme of all the above parshiot: the goats. Yes, the goats - one for G-d and one for "Azazael" (whatever that means…) One goat is "in and one is "out," so to speak. Notice that a similar theme exists in the purification offerings for both a person and a building with tzara'at (both 14:4-7 and 14:49-53); one bird gets slaughtered and the other gets sent out (free) to the fields. Notice similarly, the offerings of the "yoledet" - the woman who just gave birth - she brings two animals one for a burnt offering, an "olah," and one for a sin offering, a "chatat." I think the "duality" of all these sacrifices represents the two sides of each of the! se "differentiation" mitzvot.
"Sh'chutei chutz" - Again, defines what's "in" and what's "out of bounds" with respect to where one may offer a sacrifice.
Caananite/Egyptian practices - Most of these are simply a delineation of whom one is allowed to marry (or otherwise sleep with) and whom one is not. However, it also emphasizes the difference between the Caananites and Egytians who followed these practices and us who follow G-d's laws. It also uses the theme of "tumah" - "do not defile yourselves -'titamu' - with them."
Kedoshim - These laws, seemingly unrelated and not dealing with differentiating, would at first seem to be a problem for my theory. However, in fact, the command "You shall be holy" is the ultimate differentiation we can each perform between the "holy and unholy" - by clearly making ourselves holy through our ethical behavior. Notice at the conclusion of this parsha we find the verses (20:24-26) "… I am the L-rd your G-d who has separated ('hivdalti') you from the nations. You shall therefore distinguish ('v'hivdaltem') between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean birds and clean; and you should not make your souls abominable by beast, or by bird… which I have separated ('hivdalti') from you as unclean. And you shall be holy to me, for I the L-rd am holy, and have separated ('v'avdil') you from the nations that you should be mine." Notice that this conclusion of Parshat Kedoshim concentrates on unclean vs. clean animals, a topic which was not covered in that parsha bu! t in the latter part of Parshat Shmini. Thus bringing us full circle and concluding this whole long section (in good writing style) with a recapitulation of the beginning.
It would seem that the sin committed by Aaron's two sons, Nadav and Avihu, was that they failed to make a necessary differentiation, between the fire that G-d had commanded them to bring and the "foreign fire" which they decided to bring themselves. The Torah's ordering of all these laws of "differentiating" after their story contrasts with this lack of differentiation on their parts, which led to their deaths.
Now, one issue remains: Why does the brief introductory paragraph interrupt the narrative of Aaron and sons? It would be logical to conclude that the second half of the story, that which comes after the introduction, actually belongs there because it also follows the theme of all the following parshiot. In this portion of the story Aaron and his surviving sons rule for themselves that they should not eat the sin offering because they are mourners. Aaron says to Moshe "… if I had eaten the sin offering today, should it have been accepted in the sight of G-d?" In other words Aaron made an extra differentiation, which Moshe had not commanded, but which he saw was "right in the eyes of G-d." This then is the reason behind all of these following laws of differentiating animals, bloods, scabs, poxes, goats, mates, our nation, our behavior and ultimately our very selves: To inculcate in ourselves a sense of what is right in G-d eyes so that we can go "lifnim mishurat hadin" - "beyond! the letter of the law" - and do "what is good and just in the eyes of the L-rd your G-d."
Shabbat shalom.